KEY POINTS

The LDP and its coalition partner are poised to topple the ruling DPJ, a Nikkei poll shows.

But a split parliament would hamper Shinzo Abe’s stimulus plans to pull the economy out of recession.

Japanese voters cast their ballots yesterday in parliamentary elections that will probably topple the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, and give the nation its seventh leader in six years.

The Liberal Democratic Party, whose 2009 landslide loss ended a half-century grip on power, was forecast to crush Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s DPJ in the lower house voting. A victory would return LDP leader Shinzo Abe to the office he left for health reasons five years ago.

He would inherit a country in recession, still reeling from the 2011 earthquake and nuclear crisis, and a split parliament that may hamper his plans for more monetary easing and fiscal stimulus. With many smaller parties vying to reach a disenchanted electorate and upper house elections looming in July, Mr Abe must produce results.

“While the LDP is likely to win big this time, it could lose big next time,” said Gregory Noble, a professor of politics at the University of Tokyo.

“In all likelihood, the bloom will be off the rose by next summer’s upper house election.”

Polls show that while the LDP was likely to get the most seats, other parties may limit its victory. A party run by ex-Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara and Osaka mayor Toru Hashi­moto may get as many seats as the DPJ, and groups calling for the abolition of nuclear power and opposed to a US-led trade deal are also drawing support. At least 12 parties were campaigning for the 480-member lower house, made up of 300 single constituencies and 180 proportionally apportioned seats. The DPJ had 233 seats and the LDP 118 when Mr Noda dissolved the chamber on November 16.

The LDP and its coalition partner, New Komeito, are poised to win more than 300 seats, according to a Nikkei newspaper poll on December 14. The DPJ may win fewer than 70, the least since the party was formed in 1998.

An LDP victory would bring redemption for Mr Abe, who quit after a year in office. The DPJ, undermined by internal squabbling, retreated from pledges to shrink the bureaucracy and boost child welfare. Public support for Mr Noda, the party’s third premier in as many years, dropped as he passed a bill doubling the sales tax and restarted atomic power plants after the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

A central bank report last week illustrated the challenges Mr Abe will face, with confidence among large Japanese manufacturers sliding to the lowest since the aftermath of the global recession. The quarterly Tankan index fell to minus 12 in December, the fifth straight release in which pessimists outnumbered optimists.

Mr Abe has also called for strengthening control over disputed islands and pledged to boost defence spending. Japan’s purchase of the islands sparked violent protests in China and damaged the $US340 billion trade relationship between the world’s second- and third-largest economies.

Voters in Tokyo were also voting for a new governor after Mr Ishihara, whose proposal in April to buy the islands forced Mr Noda to do so in September, stepped down to run for Parliament. Acting governor Naoki Inose, who served as Mr Ishihara’s deputy for five years, is an independent candidate backed by his former boss and the LDP.

Mr Inose, a writer and historian, has pledged to replace ageing power plants and improve the subway network in the nation’s capital, which has a $US1 trillion economy that accounts for almost one-fifth of Japan’s gross domestic product. He faces competition from at least seven other candidates, including attorney Kenji Utsunomiya and former LDP science minister Takashi Sasagawa.